Giant robot bugs coming to the Houston Zoo

The bugs began invading the Houston Zoo this week from the backs of 18-wheelers.

The bugs began invading the Houston Zoo this week from the backs of 18-wheelers.

Photo: The Houston Zoo

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The photos above are from the last Extreme Bugs exhibit at the Chester Zoo in Cheshire, England.

The photos above are from the last Extreme Bugs exhibit at the Chester Zoo in Cheshire, England.

Photo: Billings Productions

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Giant robot bugs coming to the Houston Zoo

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Starting May 24, the Houston Zoo will be invaded by giant, nightmarish bugs, albeit fake ones.

The new Extreme Bugs exhibit, which runs through September 1, will feature 13 animatronic bugs, including ants, moths, grasshoppers, scorpions, and tarantulas, some that dwarf large trucks. People who are scared of any of these creatures in their normal size probably won’t dig on this exhibit, which will be a part of the zoo’s new “insectarium,” which also opens at the end of May. That exhibit will have a goliath bird-eating tarantula, which the zoo says is the biggest spider in the world.

Entomophobes, arachnophobes, apiphobia, mottephobes, and myrmecophobics should all stay home. There are phobias for most everything, and my spell check just had a minor heart attack.

The photos above are from the last time the giant bugs on display, at the Chester Zoo in Cheshire, England.

Houston Zoo spokesman Brian Hill said the exhibit brings to his mind the 1988 movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, where fresh-faced teens had to fend off large insects after being accidentally miniaturized by a machine their scientist father had created. It’s an ’80s kid thing, you probably wouldn’t understand.

Most people’s reaction to encountering a tarantula the size of a semi-truck is an appropriate and emphatic “Nope!” but surely more daring Houstonians will gladly step up to view the creepy crawlers, if only for the selfie fodder.

The giant bug exhibit will cost $3.95 a person, plus a general zoo admission ticket.